Nardelli abruptly quits state job

Tom Nardelli abruptly quit his state job with Gov. Scott Walker in late July, pulling the plug on his $90,000-a-year position just days after accepting the post.

That ended more than 3½ years Nardelli put in with Walker, including three years as his chief of staff when Walker was Milwaukee County executive. Nardelli was alderman for a northwest side city district for 18 years until he retired from that job in 2004.

Nardelli said Tuesday he resigned as administrator for the state Division of Environmental and Regulatory Services because he decided it would be unfair to keep the job knowing he planned to resign soon anyway.

"I was toying with leaving at the end of September," he said. He picked that exit date because it was the 100th anniversary of another state division Nardelli led - Safety and Buildings. He held that job for the first six months of Walker's tenure as governor.

Accepted post in July

Shortly after accepting his last appointment July 18, "I began to have misgivings about my decision," Nardelli wrote in a July 21 resignation letter to Dave Ross, who heads the state Department of Safety and Professional Services. Nardelli said in the letter it wouldn't be fair to him or the Division of Environmental and Regulatory Services "for me to assume this assignment for only a couple of months."

In an interview, Nardelli said "other little things" related to the internal operations of his former state agency also led to his resignation. He declined to say what those were.

John Murray, a spokesman for Nardelli's former state agency, said Nardelli had left "to pursue other opportunities." Another state official is temporarily filling Nardelli's job, Murray said.

Spokesmen for Walker did not return calls about Nardelli's resignation.

Nardelli said an ongoing John Doe investigation that included prosecutors' seizure of work computers of at least two former county staffers of Walker's had nothing to do with his resignation from his state job. Nardelli said he had not been questioned in the probe, which began more than a year ago.

The probe is believed to focus at least in part on allegations of county workers aiding Walker's campaign while on the job for the county.

In an interview earlier this summer, Walker said prosecutors were "looking at a lot of people . . . things like that are pretty much open-ended. So they can look at just about anything."

He did not respond to a question about whether he thought his former county staffers would be cleared in the Doe investigation.

Nardelli said he plans to revive his dormant consulting business, though he'll be barred temporarily from lobbying the state or the county. Both have laws banning lobbying by former employees for a year after they quit their public jobs.

Nardelli collects pensions from the city and county, as well as one from the Army, where he served more than 25 years.

About Steve Schultze

Schultze joined the Milwaukee Journal staff in 1985, covering state government and politics from the paper's state capitol bureau in Madison. He also served as Madison bureau chief for five years. Following the Journal-Sentinel merger in 1995, Schultze shifted to the paper's investigative/enterprise team, where he co-authored series on abusive teachers in the Milwaukee Public Schools, influence peddling in the administration of Gov. Tommy Thompson and shortcomings of a $3 billion regional sewer system upgrade. In 2007, he began covering Milwaukee County government. Schultze is a graduate of the University of Colorado School of Journalism.